


An Ocean of Darkness

by jamieherondxle



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29764014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamieherondxle/pseuds/jamieherondxle
Summary: *Set post-ACOSF / post B&M extra**ACOSF SPOILERS*Azriel meditates on Nyx's birth and tries to settle with himself what his new future will look like. He encounters Elain in the grounds outside the House of Wind. Angsting and sexual tension proceed.
Relationships: Elain Archeron/Azriel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 73





	An Ocean of Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> ACOSF spoilers (and for the B&M Azriel extra!)

There was something almost wrong about this feeling. Swaddled in the finest cloth, nestled in his arms, the little body was surprisingly weighty; compact. Hot. Its head was barely as wide as his fist. Its scent, sweet as honeysuckle at twilight, billowed around him as it breathed, the motion barely perceptible through the swaddling. Only if he peered close: there. A flutter against the fabric, delicate as a bee’s wings.

Azriel knew it should not have been like this. But the sight of Nyx sleeping, so effortlessly perfect, unleashed something ravenous inside him. Dark as a moonless night; seeping. It spread with the consistency of newly-spilled of blood. Tangible, like seeing an old acquaintance outlined in the doorway.

His shadows began to rise around him.

Where did this feeling come from? Why was he slipping, just at the sight of an infant? It was as if his foot had slid over ice-smooth rock, where he had expected to feel a foothold. And now he fell. And fell, and fell, it seemed, in every direction.

Everything about this was hard to accept. This improbable creature, only two years ago, could never have existed. The fact that in some long-distant eon of time, he himself would have resembled this miniature thing. This thing so fragile, despite the tips of its wings poking out above the blankets. This thing that knew nothing but the everlasting worship of everyone in their Inner Circle. Mor had held onto him for hours; Azriel had only wrestled her into relinquishing her prize by reminding her that her presence was needed elsewhere.

In that long-distant eon of time, had he, too, shut his eyes so? Slept with such trust, in a stranger’s arms? His cheeks, were they as apple-round, as faintly blushed? His nose as tiny? Surely even he, as a babe, would have been set into the cradle of someone’s arms like this, however briefly. Would they have seen his skin as Nyx’s was? Dusky and glowing. Whole, silk-thin. Unruined.

Azriel brought a fingertip up to his forehead, tracing a reverent line across his skin. The intensity of that softness astonished him. It was like a sun-warmed rose petal, rubbed between your fingers. He had forgotten that this was what children were like: their bodies so foreign, so killingly soft. No wonder this had been beaten out of him.

A scrap of a memory danced before him. A whirling hem of a dress; a hand, thrown backwards. Elegant, and pale. Faint lines of dirt circling the fingernails.

His gaze lifted, as if to follow it.

Instead, his eyes collided with Rhys’, who, it appeared, had been staring at him.

There was no time to tuck away his thoughts. They were breaking the surface even as Azriel straightened, and he knew how gasping-loud they would be. A _ll this time, and I thought it would just be us, together. And now, I am the one alone._ The next followed, swimming on its tail, _but of course, it would always be this way. This is the way it was always supposed to be. It was always going to be._ In the end, there would only ever be him. Azriel would always be there, really, chained on the floor of that dungeon. Head cast back in the stale darkness, seeing only the faint light of his breath on the chilly air.

His brother’s expression was twisted into a wellspring of deep sorrow. For him.

Rhys stepped forwards. “I’m sorry.”

It was like some snag in time: already, the resemblance between father and son was so strong. This was just a vision of what the boy in his arms would be in so many years.

 _Get out of my head._ It surprised him, the anger. Like someone had rushed him by mistake and he stumbled, casting around for who had done it.

“I’ll take him.” Rhys said, coming closer, arms extended.

Azriel glanced down at Nyx, suddenly unable to remember why he had petitioned Mor to hold him in the first place. What did he want with this child, so loved? What did he want with the memories and the feelings he invoked so slickly, so powerfully?

As his arms were relieved of the burden, he considered that he must be the only person in all of Prythian who was not interested in handling the babe. Once the news of Nyx’s existence became widespread — and it was already leaking, fast, his sources informed him — the child would be hunted for the rest of his existence.

Then he was in the air, feeling the wind whip about his wings, whirling up and up. It just this side of dusk, the sky quietly darkening, the horizon splayed plum-purples and blues. Rhys and Cassian, both, now had their mates and their homes, but this was Azriel’s only real home. The empty sky. The smell of the air, turning into night. The soothing cold. Breathing so deep as to let the chill infuse his skin, down to his bones, over and over, as if he could bottle this precious sensation, so that it would be always with him.

Azriel let himself circle, flying aimlessly, until the night stretched itself over the heavens in its full glory. He had seen so many courts, visited so many places — probably even more than Rhysand. But no other could compare to the fabulous majesty of the night court sky, this high, this late. Velvet-black, all-encompassing but for the light of the stars that glittered like drops of crystal inlaid into a seabed of darkness. And just like an ocean, it seemed to move, to breathe a life of its own. A darkness that you could reach into, and it would reach back.

When eventually he returned to the House of Wind, he lingered outside, unwilling to step across the threshold. For there was only his solitary bed, and sleep, mocking him. Taunting him.

From the smell of vacancy about the place, he could tell that Cassian and Nesta were not inside. For once.

Some thrill that felt oddly like freedom curled around him. Or was it rebellion? But how long had he been playing this game with her now? Waiting. Loitering in the grounds. Just on the off-chance. It was never an off-chance.

The rush that coursed through him when he spotted her — curled up on the ground, near a rose bush, her hair like a shadow-splashed coin — was so heady it dizzied him.

She glided to her feet. “Why are you here, Azriel?”

Something inside him seized, at the sound of his name, spoken on her lovely, melodious voice.

She walked forwards. “Why? Why are you here?” This time, the edge in her tone had given way to something else. A pleading.

If he reached out his hand, he thought, he could have had her body, so much more petite than her sisters’, flush against him. And then everything in the world would have melted away apart from the shape and the feel of her. The too-exquisite cloud of her scent that floated around him.

He remembered Rhys’ words. _You are to stay away from her._

How terribly he had managed so far. Every day he was only sliding further downhill. And enjoying it so deliciously.

He was about to say, _I thought we had an understanding._ But of course, there was no understanding. No words about this had passed between them. It was something that was forming, half-knowing, between them both. And neither had the will to stop themselves. _What if I lingered here? What if I went down this corridor? What if I allowed myself to look too long? What if I were to drive myself half-mad, searching for an excuse to touch you?_ “I…could not bare the thought of going to my bed.”

It was like someone else had said the words. He almost checked himself, as if to see that he were actually still master of his own body.

A small nod. And then, suddenly, with no warning, she stepped up, her hand covering the side of his face. “It has been this way for you too long, has it not?” Her thumb was stroking, backwards and forwards, across his cheekbone.

Immediately, he felt his shadows sing, his body begin to thrum with something keener than mere pleasure. _Yes. Yes._ He had caressed her neck just so, at Solstice. When they had nearly kissed.

The memory swirled in her eyes, too.

_Stay away from her._

This feeling, this touch of hers. He could live in it. Eat from it, drink from it. Survive in it. This wildness. He would submit himself to anything for it.

“I have something for you.” A moment later, there was coldness were her hand had been, and she had drawn out something from the pocket of her skirts, holding it aloft.

“What is it?” The liquid inside was some purple-brown, shimmering fluid.

“It will help you sleep.”

“Ah.” He understood. “And I mustn’t take too much, I assume?”

She frowned. “It will not steal consciousness away. It will ease the unquiet inside you, that is all.”

 _How do you know?_ He stared into those doe-brown eyes, so large, considering all the different things he could say, and do. In his mind, he laid out the options, and weighed them up. The only one drawing him was the version of events where he dove down into the crook of her neck, and breathed in, open-mouthed, frantic, pulling in her scent; letting his teeth and tongue cover every single scrap of skin he could find. Instead, he said, “We need to stop this.”

“Stop what?”

“This. You know.”

A determined shake of her head. “I have made my choice.” He shook his head, trying to dispel the hazy image of Lucien; playing unsuccessfully with the idea of introducing more space between them.

“It is more than that.”

“Rhysand?” A noise of contempt left her.

He stared. Had she heard the entire conversation he’d had with him, in his office? It was possible. But then, there were other things. “How did you know?”

“Does it not occur to you…What if Rhysand were in your position? Can you imagine him obeying some order to stay away from my sister? No. Never.” She pushed closer, defiant. Heat radiated from her. The effort of not touching her was like sinking underwater, allowing himself to drown. Stopping himself from the urge to throw up his arms and gasp for breath. “I care nothing for his orders.”

This girl, who seemed so pure and innocent; who had been holed away for so long. And yet she seemed to have a more accurate grasp of the High Lord’s character than some who had known him years. “How do you know — all this?”

She made a light shrug. “My power rises in me, still. I see, hear, feel — odd things. But I keep seeing you. Your arm under your head, sheets back. You don’t even shut the curtains, now. You do not even try to close your eyes.”

She had been seeing…him? In his bed?

Before he had time to worry what else she had seen of him, she had grabbed one of his hands, thrusting the vial into his palm. By instinct, his fingers shut around the glass, clasping, too, the edge of her fingers. And then she was ducking her head, pressing a warm, firm kiss to the grotesque half-flayed skin that coated his knuckles. “Please.” Her beautiful eyes implored him. “For my sake.”


End file.
